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Hello! First, a disclaimer: I'm not a great player, I'm just around 5,000 MMR on EU, so you can probably take it all with a grain of salt, but my build's proved to work against players of a much higher MMR - I've won multiple games with it in the MMR range of 4,600 - 5,600. Actually, the only games I've lost were when I got severely outplayed or just didn't execute the build properly.
But, what's the build? Well, it's an infestor rush. You heard it right, I'm about to present you with an infestor rush. To be exact, 5:15 infestor rush. Into 8:15 ultralisks. With chitinous and +1/+1.
Here is the exact build order (it's the gas timing that's important, the opening itself can be altered):
-- 18 hatch,
-- 18 gas,
-- 17 pool,
-- when pool finishes, 6 (or 4, depending on preference) lings to deal with the reaper and 2 queens,
-- @100 gas - ling speed, don't pull out of gas,
-- @next 100 gas lair (~2:40)
-- infestation pit and double gas when lair finishes
-- when you've got two mineral lines and 3 gases saturated, take your third,
-- @inf pit completion, pathogen glands and start making lings to deal with the first aggression of the Terran which should be coming at around 5:00
-- when your pathogen glands is 21 seconds in, make 2 infestors, keep making lings, and when you've made enough to deal with Terran's aggression (or if there isn't any) make 2 evo chambers and start hive
-- start +1/+1 melee and carapace upgrades,
-- when your hive finishes, ultra cavern
-- @ultra cavern completion, first start chitinous, then ~3-4 ultras and go from there, adding bane nest and spire as needed
Okay, so you have the build, but how the hell are you supposed to defend? I mean, pros don't do this, so it surely must die to any aggression, right?
Well, no. It's actually very safe (which surprised me a lot - I thought it'd be a suicide build that would never work against someone who actually attacks, but that's not the case at all). There are two reasons for its safety - first, there are only two differences between this build and a standard one: later 3rd and instead more gas. You get the same amount of workers against the double medivac stim drop as you would with a standard build and also the same amount of lings, maybe 2-3 less queens (I usually have 4-5 fighting queens when my opponent starts his aggression). But most importantly, you get those power units: infestors. Them being out so ridiculously early makes it very hard for the Terran to actually commit with his drop - if he tries to dive for a queen snipe, he loses literally every marine and at least one medivac due to fungal, and then ALL his aggression is shut down and you get to do whatever you want.
So, we've got the most popular opening out of the way. But what's next? I mean, there are so many ways to follow up the double medivac stim drop, this build surely can't be safe against all of them! Well, it can and it is. It really doesn't matter what the Terran decides to follow up with as there are only two questions you need an answer to - if you can drone up and if you need to add an infestor or two. The 2:40 lair makes it very easy to scout if your opponent is going for a fast 3rd CC or not, and that's really all the information you need alongside the occasional ling pokes to see his composition. Liberator follow up? You've already got queens, might as well make a spore at the most vulnerable base. Tank follow up? Ling/queen/infestor with decent micro is amazing against that. Fast third? Drone up and get that fourth going.
Well, okay, but you could say: cool, but what if they don't do the most popular opening? It's ladder after all.
And the answer is: you're still fine. Against a hellion/cyclone opening, you've got ling/infestor and can either very early pounce on your opponent or just do an ultralisk timing which they cannot really defend with their style. Against a hellion/banshee opening, you've got ling/queen and a very early overseer, so you can even skimp on spores. Against a hellbat/marine/medivac push, all you've got to do is stall for around 10 seconds with queens and then you get your infestors out and completely shut down the push with ling/queen/infestor.
Okay, sure, but what if my opponent realizes early on what I'm doing, doesn't commit to his first drop aside from killing creep, just keeps the medivacs around, takes a fast third, maybe even a fourth, and goes very early ghosts or liberators?
And this, I believe, is the best response. However... you're still fine. I know, sounds crazy, doesn't it? But hear me out: you've got ultra/infestor/ling/queen, an army that won't lose off creep. That means he cannot attack unless he gets a high liberator count, and if you spot him trying to do this, you can just transition into corruptors and play out a standard ultra/corruptor game which generally favors Zerg.
Alright, you can say I'm making it out to be the literally best thing ever, the new meta, the best way to play and probably even calling pro players scrubs for not realizing this.
And no, I'm not. It's by no means perfect - the dependance on power units makes your margin of error very small. For example, you simply cannot lose your infestors early on. You can whiff the fungals most of the time and still come out fine, but you cannot lose the units themselves - it's very important to get them early on so that they can start accumulating energy and so that you don't have to make any more of them (sometimes you may add one infestor if you really need to stall for time, but that's the most you'd need) as you want all your gas to go into upgrades and ultralisks.
It is also hard to defend drops with a style like this. It is of course by no means impossible, but really takes getting used to - you don't have mutas or corruptors (at least early on) to help you, you need to rely on the mobility of lings, the fungal of infestors and the AA of queens to deal with drops.
However, I think it's a very interesting style, one that's definitely worth looking at and giving a chance. If you've got any questions, please ask them below and I'll try to answer them all. I'll also leave a replay against A.I. so you can get the general feel of the build.
Notes:
-- use the least amount of creep tumors possible (2-3, especially early on), accumulating energy for transfuse is very important.
-- try to research overlord speed before your first big attack and morph a couple droperlords. Put all your fighting queens there, they'll be an amazing help against a small number of liberators and for transfuse
-- it's fine to be even or only slightly ahead on workers with this build, especially early on or against two base attacks - you're not looking for an economic advantage, but for a technological one. Your power units - queens, infestors and ultras - don't die, so they don't need to be constantly replaced
Replay (if need be, I can add more): http://drop.sc/replay/3268477
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This is a good opener but it has a few problems.
Ling Infestor has three big weaknesses, Hellbats, Banshees and Widowmines. ,Especially the Hellbats are very hard to deal with.
How do you deal with Hellbat Marine Medivac Pushes? Don't the Hellbats just kill you?
I know you say that the Infestors just kill them but it seems tough to imagine :O
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Hi, can you post some replays of your games? I basically never go Infestors so It'd be nice to see how this plays out. Theoretically I can see this working out nicely since you get to kill off units that overextend.
In terms of build effficiency, I think you can delay your speed since you're not taking an early 3rd. Getting 3:20 speed costs so much money and it basically only lets you kill the reaper.
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On August 15 2016 01:48 Saechiis wrote:
Hi, can you post some replays of your games? I basically never go Infestors so It'd be nice to see how this plays out. Theoretically I can see this working out nicely since you get to kill off units that overextend.
In terms of build effficiency, I think you can delay your speed since you're not taking an early 3rd. Getting 3:20 speed costs so much money and it basically only lets you kill the reaper.
I'll just paste my reddit comment with the replays:
http://drop.sc/replay/3270332 (good example of a game where I whiff both my early fungals, but don't lose the infestors and still come out fine)
http://drop.sc/replay/3270336 (I lose this one, but as you'll see, it had nothing to do with the build and everything to do with my poor play)
http://drop.sc/replay/3270333 (here's one where I actually mess up both fungal and early economy, but am still fine)
http://drop.sc/replay/3270294 (standard bio play, my opponent failed to adapt)
http://drop.sc/replay/3270293 (against a two base tank push)
http://drop.sc/replay/3270298 (and here's one where both of us knew exactly what the other was doing, my opponent tried to adapt with a super fast 4 base setup)
And about speed, I'm happy to experiment, but tbh I like how it plays out now. There's a couple factors that make getting speed good, for example easy scouting and denying scout of your opponent. If they have to waste a scan early on to know I'm going for an infestation pit, I'm more than fine with that. But I'll experiment with a gasless opening and getting lair first, and then speed.
On August 15 2016 00:50 Railgan wrote:
This is a good opener but it has a few problems.
Ling Infestor has three big weaknesses, Hellbats, Banshees and Widowmines. ,Especially the Hellbats are very hard to deal with.
How do you deal with Hellbat Marine Medivac Pushes? Don't the Hellbats just kill you?
I know you say that the Infestors just kill them but it seems tough to imagine :O
I'll get replays for you as fast as possible. To be honest, after the queen buff, I only played two games against a hellbat push with this build, and both times I held rather easily (one time it was a hellbat/banshee push, and the second it was a 4:45 4 hellbat/8 marine/medivac push and I held both with ling/queen), so I may have dismissed it too fast. Will get a friend to do it against me and report back.
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On August 15 2016 10:34 Alchemik wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2016 00:50 Railgan wrote:
This is a good opener but it has a few problems.
Ling Infestor has three big weaknesses, Hellbats, Banshees and Widowmines. ,Especially the Hellbats are very hard to deal with.
How do you deal with Hellbat Marine Medivac Pushes? Don't the Hellbats just kill you?
I know you say that the Infestors just kill them but it seems tough to imagine :O
I'll get replays for you as fast as possible. To be honest, after the queen buff, I only played two games against a hellbat push with this build, and both times I held rather easily (one time it was a hellbat/banshee push, and the second it was a 4:45 4 hellbat/8 marine/medivac push and I held both with ling/queen), so I may have dismissed it too fast. Will get a friend to do it against me and report back.
I am not talking about the early hellbat push. I mean pure marine hellbat pushes all game long. It just seems like you can't deal with that.
I played a lot of infestors in HotS and while it went decent against the widowmine variation the Hellbat Marine Medivac Players killed me almost every game.
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On August 15 2016 22:32 Railgan wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2016 10:34 Alchemik wrote:On August 15 2016 00:50 Railgan wrote:
This is a good opener but it has a few problems.
Ling Infestor has three big weaknesses, Hellbats, Banshees and Widowmines. ,Especially the Hellbats are very hard to deal with.
How do you deal with Hellbat Marine Medivac Pushes? Don't the Hellbats just kill you?
I know you say that the Infestors just kill them but it seems tough to imagine :O
I'll get replays for you as fast as possible. To be honest, after the queen buff, I only played two games against a hellbat push with this build, and both times I held rather easily (one time it was a hellbat/banshee push, and the second it was a 4:45 4 hellbat/8 marine/medivac push and I held both with ling/queen), so I may have dismissed it too fast. Will get a friend to do it against me and report back. I am not talking about the early hellbat push. I mean pure marine hellbat pushes all game long. It just seems like you can't deal with that. I played a lot of infestors in HotS and while it went decent against the widowmine variation the Hellbat Marine Medivac Players killed me almost every game.
Um... sorry, but I've never seen or heard of anyone playing hellbats over widow mines in LotV. I asked a couple Terran players if they could do it to me, but no-one knew what I meant and why you'd do it. Would you happen to have a replay? Or at least some timings?
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On August 15 2016 23:24 Alchemik wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2016 22:32 Railgan wrote:On August 15 2016 10:34 Alchemik wrote:On August 15 2016 00:50 Railgan wrote:
This is a good opener but it has a few problems.
Ling Infestor has three big weaknesses, Hellbats, Banshees and Widowmines. ,Especially the Hellbats are very hard to deal with.
How do you deal with Hellbat Marine Medivac Pushes? Don't the Hellbats just kill you?
I know you say that the Infestors just kill them but it seems tough to imagine :O
I'll get replays for you as fast as possible. To be honest, after the queen buff, I only played two games against a hellbat push with this build, and both times I held rather easily (one time it was a hellbat/banshee push, and the second it was a 4:45 4 hellbat/8 marine/medivac push and I held both with ling/queen), so I may have dismissed it too fast. Will get a friend to do it against me and report back. I am not talking about the early hellbat push. I mean pure marine hellbat pushes all game long. It just seems like you can't deal with that. I played a lot of infestors in HotS and while it went decent against the widowmine variation the Hellbat Marine Medivac Players killed me almost every game. Um... sorry, but I've never seen or heard of anyone playing hellbats over widow mines in LotV. I asked a couple Terran players if they could do it to me, but no-one knew what I meant and why you'd do it. Would you happen to have a replay? Or at least some timings?
They haven't really played that in LotV but in HotS a lot of Terrans liked to do that.
The build is basically 3 Base 2 Factory 1 Starport X Rax Marine Hellbat Medivac and was used even against Baneling Players in Early-Mid HotS before Zergs adapted to it and stopped building infestors and instead began producing Roaches and Banelings.
There was a lot of Hellbat Thor Marine Marauder in HotS e.g.
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On August 16 2016 00:32 Railgan wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2016 23:24 Alchemik wrote:On August 15 2016 22:32 Railgan wrote:On August 15 2016 10:34 Alchemik wrote:On August 15 2016 00:50 Railgan wrote:
This is a good opener but it has a few problems.
Ling Infestor has three big weaknesses, Hellbats, Banshees and Widowmines. ,Especially the Hellbats are very hard to deal with.
How do you deal with Hellbat Marine Medivac Pushes? Don't the Hellbats just kill you?
I know you say that the Infestors just kill them but it seems tough to imagine :O
I'll get replays for you as fast as possible. To be honest, after the queen buff, I only played two games against a hellbat push with this build, and both times I held rather easily (one time it was a hellbat/banshee push, and the second it was a 4:45 4 hellbat/8 marine/medivac push and I held both with ling/queen), so I may have dismissed it too fast. Will get a friend to do it against me and report back. I am not talking about the early hellbat push. I mean pure marine hellbat pushes all game long. It just seems like you can't deal with that. I played a lot of infestors in HotS and while it went decent against the widowmine variation the Hellbat Marine Medivac Players killed me almost every game. Um... sorry, but I've never seen or heard of anyone playing hellbats over widow mines in LotV. I asked a couple Terran players if they could do it to me, but no-one knew what I meant and why you'd do it. Would you happen to have a replay? Or at least some timings? They haven't really played that in LotV but in HotS a lot of Terrans liked to do that. I couldn't find the exact build I was looking for but e.g. MVP played a Marine Hellbat allin here http://blog.spawningtool.com/?p=393The build is basically 3 Base 2 Factory 1 Starport X Rax Marine Hellbat Medivac and was used even against Baneling Players in Early-Mid HotS before Zergs adapted to it and stopped building infestors and instead began producing roaches and Banelings.
The final 11:15 push, if we convert to LotV time, would hit at around 8 minutes, and my ultras come out at 8:15. It shouldn't be too hard to stall for a bit, especially with fungal/queen. If I ever play against a hellbat style though, I will make sure to post the replay.
The thing that I really struggle with when playing this build is mass liberator off 2 or maybe even 3 startports (2 reactors, 1 tech lab). Unless I hit before they get 6-8 liberators with an ultra/queen drop timing, it's very hard to deal with someone pushing out with 8-10 liberators.
It is of course doable, as you can make a faster spire, two-three spores and continually build queens to stall as long as possible for the corruptors to come out, but it is the style I'm having the most trouble against at the moment.
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ill check it out. im around 5k mmr atm and i try to avoid infestor styles (dont overly like them vs terran) maybe this could change my mind.
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I love it! I always loved infestors but I don't find many uses for them (I mostly use them vs air) and a meagre plat player like myself isn't so great at experimenting new styles. But I'll try this one out for sure.
You say you struggle vs heavy liberator with this build. Would it help to go for ravagers instead of ultras against this style? For those sweet fungal+biles.
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On August 16 2016 02:08 The Bottle wrote:
I love it! I always loved infestors but I don't find many uses for them (I mostly use them vs air) and a meagre plat player like myself isn't so great at experimenting new styles. But I'll try this one out for sure.
You say you struggle vs heavy liberator with this build. Would it help to go for ravagers instead of ultras against this style? For those sweet fungal+biles.
Hmm, I definitely wouldn't advice replacing ultras with ravagers, but going for 4-5 ravagers instead of banelings sounds like an interesting idea that I'll try and toy around with.
I think the issue with doing that is that ravagers aren't very good against a high number of liberators - they're good if there's only a couple, like up to 4, and if there's constant trading going on, but if the Terran decides to be passive for a while and only pushes out when he already has those 8-10 liberators, then I think you definitely need corruptors.
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so tried the build out. 2 base 1/1 marine all ins counter this hard since u have no real aoe. how do u deal with them?
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On August 16 2016 03:37 A_Scarecrow wrote:
so tried the build out. 2 base 1/1 marine all ins counter this hard since u have no real aoe. how do u deal with them?
Could you post a replay? Haven't played against a pure marine all-in yet, but I have a couple ideas I'd have to try out.
Anyway, would be much easier to answer if I had a replay for reference.
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Figured this deserved a bump...
I have experimented with a build that opens +1 carapace into infestors into fast Ultralisks and published it to the Spawning Tool: http://lotv.spawningtool.com/build/50965/
Sadly Ultralisks have gotten a bit weaker cause of the new Tanks and you still struggle with Liberators. Style is fun though 
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I used to play this style, it works even at 5.5k mmr. However, since you rush for Utralisks, you will suffer from multiple drops all over the map. Moreover, even when you get your ultralisk, terran can just counter with mass liberators. I usually get 4 to 5 ultralisk then mass corruptors. Fun style but if terran knows how to counter it, it's nearly impossible to win.
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17hatch is more economic than 18hatch
You should change that
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EPT
